I feel bad for GenX'ers that missed out on the 60s and 70s.

Every generation feels THEIR music is the BEST!

@jasonbourne52 

That maybe true... But the 60s-70s were the pinnacle of music. 

Classical music is the pinnacle of western civilization! NOT rock-n-roll! 

Jazz - America's contribution to musical creativity - comes in second to Classical in.my opinion! 

Rap and hip hop is now the favorite musical genre of the world's youth! 

Don't you mean generation Z'ers and Millennials? My wife is a X'er and she hasn't missed out on anything...

Not sure what "missed out on" means, as all the recordings are available. Missed out on the chance to see these bands live? Missed out on the zeitgeist of the times? Help me out, here.

@fiesta75 

I meant what I meant. The average GenX'er born in the 70s missed out

I was born in 1969 I believe that makes me GenX and I at least caught the Dead 40some times in the 80s and 90s. And I don't feel I've missed out on much I can listen to music recorded in the 60s and 70s whenever I want.

Missed out what?  Music that ensures a man 60 year old has the brain 
of a teen-ager forever ?

My hands and BACK wish they were Gen-X, because the rest of me is a big ol BOOMER.. Other than an occasional Tibetan horn synchro band, I’m pretty open to all age and types of music. The cool thing as long as it was recorded some way, WE or anybody that wants to can listen and check it out. There are a lot of good digital recordings.. that’s for sure..

I have some post WWI pre WWII, Okinawan or Japanese 16 rpm LPs.
It’s not your Grandmas/Grandpas Grand Ol Opry (25-45) or Mom/Dads (40-60s) Jazz, (Dino, Cole or Sinatra) early R&R or Salsa.
It’s sure not my 60s until now music.

Them Russians weren’t a very cheery bunch either. They could reduce and evening of listening to a BUNCH of dismal, sniveling, drunk on vodka patrons. I hear their STUFF, I just want to hide in a closet and wait for the END. AND IF I’m waitin’, a good single malt, and BIG fat one, (girl and joint).. :-)

No body missed anything, they just haven’t listened to it yet.. OR refuse.

As far as the better recording medium. The one that WAS used is a great start..

Regards

As a Gen X’er I don’t feel bad. The 90’s were incredible. Activism, social
awareness and amazing music. Most of the garbage that passes as music these days makes me feel bad for Gen Y and people who think Green Day is punk.

IMO - it's kinda like building up the hype on an old movie and the younger ones go - "meh". Then you end up saying something like - it was awesome when it came out - its a classic. 

Each generation will have their own highlights/experiences- they haven't missed anything.

  

"Gen Y and people who think Green Day is punk."

gochurchgo-

Green Day/Blink 182 era of "rock" is an embarrassment  for the genre. 
Apologies to the fans I've offended. Putting Green Day in the Punk category is a double insult.

IMO Punk was done by the late 70's. Big 80's Brit Alt  fan-Smiths, Stone Roses, Joy Division etc. 80's and  early 90's were the last gold rush years of highly creative/unique music. Things seemed to get recycled and mutilated by the late 90's early 2000.

Crawling back in my hole to play my Zeppelin and Stones LP's.

If anyone gets board with music, go backwards towards the source-Classical and everything in between, there is ENDLESS discovery to be heard.

There is a very emotional connection with music from the early teens into the twenties. With all those hormones coursing through your body, first connections with the opposite sex, events, freedom, and music get conflated in a wonderfully profound way. My niece is profoundly connected to music of 2000 -2010. Tchaikovsky, the renegade of passionate music of his time. I love listening to the jazz of the fifties and sixties now, although I wasn’t yet old enough to appreciate it at its time. Actually, over my life more and more genera appealed to me. I lived in Scotland for a year and fell in love with contemporary traditional based music there. I lived in Japan and was swept into the wonderful world of music there. The world of music is endless and wonderful.

We can all listen to any music we want on vinyl just go to a used record store and buy all the classics as well as anything else.

@michaelsherry - I’m about 42, definitely feel like I missed out big time!  

Weep for us not. While there's undoubtedly a plethora of great music whose existence preceeded my own, the following are post-birth:
Gang Of Four
Joy DivisionBjork
The Cure
RadioheadD'AngeloAlan Parsons Project
The B52's
Talking Heads
Beastie Boys
Public Enemy
Rage Against the Machine
Beach House
Blondie
The Clash
Cocteau TwinsDaft Punk
Broadcast
The Flaming Lips
DeerhunterDigable Planets
A Tribe Called Quest
Echo & the Bunnymen
Prince
Portishead
James Blake
Khruangbin
Sufjan Stevens
Lower Dens
M83
Mac DeMarco
Mazzy Star
Massive Attack
Men at Work
Mogwai
My Morning Jacket
OutKast
The Pharcyde
The Police
The Psychedelic Furs
The Ramones
The Roots
The Shins
The Sound
Spoon
Stereolab
The Sundays
Television
King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard
Thee Oh Sees
Bunch of others...
Some context...first real concert was Floyd (Division Bell Tour - saw Water's at a separate show). Seen Petty live - thankfully. Grew up on wide range of stuff (Motown, classic rock). Discovered Jazz and classical later. Also discovered early progressive rock and motorik later (King Crimson, Can, etc). Beatles are in my stable. Point is, music for me is like time travel...gems to discover past, present, and glimpses of the future.

Put me down Old Yeller style the day I can't find something new to listen to regardless of the period in which it was born.
(Typed while listening to Bjork's Post on my headphone rig.)

what is the song lyric . “ every generation sends a hero up the Pop charts “…

we did screw ya on climate, but you got bitcoin outa the deal…

just like the Swing crowd looked down on the boomers about…wait for it…. “ you call that dancing ? “……

Sophomoric reunion talk, like they discovered the wheel, horsepower and beer..

Don’t feel sorry for Gen X-1965 1970 Gen Xer’s  got to experience many of those very acts during the early years of the 70’s and even into the 80’s. We also got to experience Punk (American and British) Arena Rock - The Who, Led Zepplin, , AC/DC, Van Halen, Boston, Iron Msiden, Black Sabath (Ozzy Ozbourne), Blondie, New Wave with Paul and Ringo John, Aretha and Tina Turner, Little Richard, Chuck Berry, Etc. So don’t great Boomer. We have been blessed with watching or listening to such a great mix of music and we grew up loving our country and proud of our WW 2 and Korea and Vietnam vets, you remember your fathers and mothers. So don’t feel bad for us Gen-Xers-we even listened to these amazing performances on vinyl oh I forgot Queen and Elvis. 

There really hasn't been a better time for any music lover to be alive than right now. More music is available to us now than ever before. 

 I was 10 years old and my oldest brother got stuck babysitting me. it was the best night of my life, July 29, 1969, Led Zepplin with Vanilla Fudge, Edmonton AB Kinsmen Field House, around $4 and I still have my ticket stub. 

@punkrock67

Don’t feel sorry for Gen X-1965 1970 Gen Xer’s got to experience many of those very acts during the early years of the 70’s and even into the 80’s. We also got to experience Punk (American and British) Arena Rock - The Who, Led Zepplin, , AC/DC, Van Halen, Boston, Iron Msiden, Black Sabath (Ozzy Ozbourne), Blondie, New Wave with Paul and Ringo John, Aretha and Tina Turner, Little Richard, Chuck Berry, Etc. So don’t great Boomer. We have been blessed with watching or listening to such a great mix of music and we grew up loving our country and proud of our WW 2 and Korea and Vietnam vets, you remember your fathers and mothers. So don’t feel bad for us Gen-Xers-we even listened to these amazing performances on vinyl oh I forgot Queen and Elvis.

This comment is seriously flawed in every aspect and it proves my point that GenX’ers wish they were around then (including yourself). I was born in the 50s and you’re trying to claim those acts as if they were part of your generation?

Many of those acts I mentioned such as Otis Redding, Aretha Franklin, James Brown, Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, Velvet Underground, Ray Charles, Etta James, The Stones and many more peaked before your generation even existed so what in the hell are you rewriting bs for? The average GenX’er who was born in the early 70s (like 1970) practically missed out on the 70s. They weren’t old around when Stevie Wonder peaked or Joni Mitchell peaked

You mentioned Led Zeppelin and AC/DC. They peaked in the 70s young’un... You didn’t even existed during Little Richard, Elvis and Chuck berry’s heyday which were the 50s so there was no point in you mentioning this.

You were born in 1967, you were too young to even remember what was happening in the earliest part of the 70s.

Your comment was flawed.

Michaelsherry59 is to telling the kids to get off my lawn as Kenjit is to speakers. 

I am Gen X and discovered the 50 year old George Harrison's - ALL THINGS MUST PASS only this year. I am so happy I was not spinning disks when that album first came out. Discovering this today works perfectly for me.

I actually feel sorry for people that listened to a lot a rock radio back in the 70's- 90's (like me). I missed out on an incredible amount of black music. Though I have discovered that now with streaming.

   jasonbourne52...Exactly, what is "the pinnacle of western civilization"? Everybody has their favorite musical style and others that come in as second, third, and so on. Classical music, as wonderful as it can be, is certainly not  the point the OP wished to express. Except for modern reproductions of "classical" music, where did those classics originate? From the west?
   I appreciate the sentiment the OP expressed. There are some great musical artists out there today but those from years gone by surely could provide today's younger listeners appreciation if they have not delved into the classics...not necessarily classical.

I feel sorry for them for a totally different reason. Egocentric children were deplored not encouraged. Consequently the number of egocentric children that developed into adults were few and far between, not in plague proportions as they are today.

How many do you know?

I'm sure those who lived during the hey-day of chamber music feel quite sorry for all of us.
In all seriousness, if you want us to admit that we missed out on something only an earlier generation could appreciate, then sure. Would it be great to have seen Zep live at peak power? Duh. . .of course.
When a GenX'er admits a shared appreciation of said bands, instead of 'bonding' over it or appreciating it together, the OP finds a way to yell 'get off my hill' as if there's a threat to some exclusivity. Maybe that wasn't the intent, but it came off rather condescending.
Should I have declined to see Buddy Guy live at the Keswick due to my generational alpha-denotation?

Oh well, thems the breaks. 🤷‍♂️

Those poor f-cks came along when girls dropped their panties without a 2nd thought. I feel no sympathy just jealousy.

From Motown to the British invasion from booze to boo, from don't question authority to questioning authority,  from crew cut to long hair from bras to boobs, tight pants to bell bottoms. Are you kidding me there was never a better time for music or for growing up period amen!
It's 1966 I'm 18 living in Jersey I go visit my bohemian cousin living in Greenwich Village dead set on taking my first legal drink I fly up her 4 story walk-up on Cornelia St. Susan I excitedly say let's go drinking she smiles and hands me my first joint ( Flemington flash grown on her friend's farm in Ringos NJ) and says try this instead. Wooo I put smokey, the temps, and the tops back in the wooden fruit crate and went and bought the Stones, Beatles etc.to play on my Dual TT with a cheap shure cartridge, and AR speakers. Timothy Leary's dead no, no, no, no he's outside looking in...

You had to be there to experience it, and I was, magical time for sure. Unfortunately, I presume many weren't able to experience the live concert experience based on where they lived. I lived in Ann Arbor Mich. in these decades, really experienced the zeitgeist of the moment first hand. So, for me, I'd have to agree, the greatest time to be music fan. Quantity and quality of bands coming though in those days unsurpassed.

Still, I've had many a fantastic musical experiences in subsequent decades. The concert experience has certainly changed over the years, and younger generations can never live that 60's and 70's experience. I'm not sure I feel bad for them, its more like its sort of frustrating they can never understand my special feeling for that era.

As far as music per se, I won't argue about greatest eras of music.

I'm also born in '69. I hated all that New Wave/Punk Shyte that was on the Radio growing up Southwest of Toronto in Hamilton, Ontario.
I loved the Rock music of the 60's and 70's during the 1980's. Fortunately (in most cases), I saw a lot of the Bands I liked in the 1980' & 1990's and some are still worth seeing in the 2000's, 2010's, and now 2020's and some should just call it a day.

Many of my musical Hero's in Rock & Jazz have gone to "The Great Gig in the Sky", and I was fortunate to see many in and past their Prime.

What younger folks miss not being there to hear the albums in real time is how bands from The Beatles onward developed and grew musically as their careers progressed. From I Wanna Hold Your Hand to A Day In The Life was only a four year span calendar-wise but an immense jump musically - and that jump effected many artists from The Stones to Brian Wilson and many more. Look at bands such as Yes, ELP, The Moody Blues, Jethro Tull etc as they started out with a pretty high bar to begin with and then usually topped it, with technology and exceptional musicianship.

Someone looking back to those days that wasn't alive then has an understandably completely different viewpoint. Think of how Hendrix effected guitarists, how Steely Dan’s albums, with their addictive earworms and brilliant playing kept reaching higher with each successive release. Clapton’s path from blues with Mayall and the Yardbirds thru Cream and then into Layla, mellowing a bit into 461 Ocean Blvd etc holds more intrigue when witnessed as it happened. Think about how Woodstock changed music and society.

Another interesting event was how Sting/The Police, Elvis Costello and Joe Jackson all entered the business as ostensibly punk rockers but ended up writing symphonies (Joe), working with classical string quartets (Elvis) and writing Broadway musicals (Sting) and operas (Stewart Copeland).

An amazing journey and what a long strange trip it’s been!

@tim_p,

I was 10 years old and my oldest brother got stuck babysitting me. it was the best night of my life, July 29, 1969, Led Zepplin with Vanilla Fudge, Edmonton AB Kinsmen Field House, around $4 and I still have my ticket stub.

That’s exactly what I remember. Ticket prices were any where from $5 bucks to no higher than $15. Massively fantastic shows, in them days....If you were there...

Our generation had Aretha Franklin, Etta James, James Brown, Beatles, Queen, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, David Bowie, Joni Mitchell, Otis Redding, Sam Cooke, Jimi Hendrix, Donna Summer, Earth Wind and Fire, Stevie Wonder, Ray Charles, The Kinks, The Stones, The Doors, Elton John, Velvet Underground and loads more

Hey Chuckles,

Out of all the performers you've mentioned in you post, how many of their shows have you been to?

Okay boomer.  Gen x created more genres of music than any generation before it, and it appears that continues to be the case today.
All that matters is that we love music, regardless of when it was created. 

I mean aren’t we all audio files here? Music sounds so good right now.

I'll preface this all with saying that I was born in 1981 and I have no idea what that makes me to be honest. Kind of like a generational border baby?

Good music today is just an aural experience that nothing else can even touch. The recording, production, and technology put into good modern music is just mind blowing. Don’t get me wrong I think it’s very rare when good music is made nowadays (as opposed to the past), but at the same time to idolize all these old musicians from the 60s and 70s, when we have incredible musicians nowadays that can create artful music at the pinnacle of music technology, it just doesn’t seem fair.

Yeah, definitely less bloat music in the 60-70’s but music making was so laborious and expensive that only truly talented artist could make it to that level and get the backing an support they needed in order to get studio time. That’s also why there was such a monumental push to make as much money as they could when artist did reach that level that so many people/entities backed artists that music/musicians became a cultural phenomena, epic concert tours, massive stadiums, merchandising, advertising. Music was so prohibitive and exclusive that when there was a major record that was going to drop everyone involved needed to make as much money as possible and there were fewer players in the game.

That’s like saying Standard Oil was the best oil company even, and so was the East India Tea Company at making tea.

Don’t get me wrong that must have been an incredible time to experience music, but that doesn’t necessarily make it the best of times. Maybe just the most memorable and well documented, especially for those people who live through it.

I feel this is kind of akin to the first time I drove an electric car. I had a Tesla back in 2014, and the first time I ever put my foot on the accelerator completely blew my mind away. That doesn’t necessarily mean Tesla makes the best electric vehicle, but as far as my memory goes that was an experience that will never be replicated. A little bit of a fondness bias on all our parts when it comes to the past I’m sure.

People nowadays can make music from their own homes and to a fairly high degree in quality, so of course you’re going to get a lot more crap, but still imagine what true professionals and talented musicians can create today. And then imagine how very few people will ever hear their music, because music can be cheaply made and there doesn’t have to be a windfall profit to follow. Not to mention there’s more music now than there’s ever been.

I always tell people my favorite song is one that hasn’t been written yet and my favorite album is one that I haven’t heard. I am a die-hard music progressivist when it comes to what the future could hold. Probably the most optimism I have for Humanity in this world when it comes to anything of culture or art.

Hope it delivers 😉

@tyray 

Your logic "you can't comment if you haven't been to to any shows duh." Lol what a idiotic logic. 

I've been to many shows (as if that proves anything). 

The best time for music is now.
The best time for music always will be "now", as long as all the music from the past continues to be available on good recordings.

Some previous time was "better" only with respect to live music by specific performers. But it’s not as though I would have had a realistic shot at hearing the Beatles live in 1965 or Franz Liszt live in 1843. Today we have better access to more recordings, on a greater variety of media, than ever before.

Granted, you probably can no longer walk to a local store with a couple of buddies to find bin after bin of vinyl records, with wonderful album art, for about $3.99 each. That was fun.

Don't feel too bad, many are making $$$ with YouTube channels "reacting" to the music we grew up on.

Imagine that. Well, if their parents didn't expose them to these masterpieces while growing up at least their "subscribers" are clueing them in.

Maybe there is hope for this generation aft....ah who am I kidding they're f'd

There is a good argument to be made that right now is the best time to be a music fan. We now have available all the music made from the beginning of recorded music to now, we have better systems to play it on, with performers in room sense of my system, a concert is available to me everyday, and I get to control the songs.  We have much greater access to all this great music, so many obscurities, and we can stream it at amazingly low cost. The magical experiences continue for me, just in a different way. Nostalgia sometimes fools us.

slaint

Of all those bands you listed, maybe only The Police and Prince could creep onto the list given by the OP (BTW, he forgot The Who). This in no way means that the bands you listed didn't each produce a few songs that might measure up to the songs of the bands in the original list, it just means the others didn't have the longevity and as large a catalog of great songs as those on the original list. Your list collectively? Absolutely great stuff. Individually? Good but not quite on par with the original list. Elton John had 6 straight #1 albums. Go listen to Stevie Wonder Talking Book, Innervisions, Fulfillingess' First Finale, Songs in the Key of Life in order. And that doesn't even mention the five greatest rock bands of all time in order (my opinion):
1. The Beatles
2. Led Zeppelin
3. The Who
4. Rolling Stones
5. Queen

I agree we were fortunate to have such amazing music during our formative years.  I would include lots of one or two hits wonders on that list.  I would differ about the quality of the actual live performances.  I saw nearly every touring act that hit the eastern seaboard.  I would not put a quality enjoyable show at above 50%.  Bad sound systems, muddy mixes, excruciating volume (and I like it loud), drunk/wasted performers, no seat seating, songs played triple time due to coked out drummers and bass players.  But, I always went because the other half of the time, the experience was fantastic.
Best show I ever saw was a triple bill of Golden Earring, Earth Wind and Fire, and the JGeils Band. Great sound, great crowd, all killer, no filler.

For those who may not realize in this age of easily obtainable music, back in the day we had to spend our hard earned money on albums (and before that on 45s) if we wanted to hear music we liked on demand and that was the differentiator between good and great music. We almost always waited for the third song from an album to be played on the radio before we spent that hard earned money. If you bought the album after the first song off an album was played on the radio, too often you got burned by one good song and some filler. But if there were 3 good songs, usually the entire album would be good. So there are plenty of bands (Dire Straights being one example) that I might have liked and thought were good, but they didn't get me to spend my hard earned money on an albums because I may not have heard that 3rd great song on one of their albums. Spending that money was the great differentiator.

Hello,
I am a Gen X and did not miss out on anything. I was born in 1970 and feel I was the luckiest because I was smack dab in the middle. It made me appreciate music even more. When I was 7 or 8 I would ride my bike up to the record store that was 4 miles away to spend my hard earned allowance. I know I did not miss a beat (pun intended) because I listen or can listen to anything. Some of my vinyl is classic rock (Floyd, Queen, Elton, Rush) but the other half is all classical and Jazz. Last night I spun Mahler and Miles KOB. I just got back in from a two week vacation a few days ago. When I listened to my system I could not stop smiling because it sounded so good. It is making me wonder if I really need to upgrade my main system like I wanted to two weeks ago. 

I got to know Billy Swan when we both lived in Sherman Oaks, California in the 1990’s (if he’s unfamiliar, look him up. His one hit single is "I Can Help".). I’ve always appreciated the bands I got to see and hear live in my teenage years due to the year of my birth and geographical location (San Francisco Bay area)---The Beach Boys with Brian Wilson on Fender bass in ’64, The Beatles in ’65. Cream, The Jimi Hendrix Experience, The Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane---all in ’67. In ’68 The Who with Keith Moon, The Electric Flag (with Mike Bloomfield and Buddy Miles), the doors, Albert King (listen to he and Freddie King to hear who all the white guitarists were copying). Then The Kinks (a GREAT live band in the late-60’s/early-70’s), Procol Harum (unfortunately without organist Matthew fisher, who had by then left the group), hundreds of others. But I was green with envy when Billy told me he had seen Elvis, Bill, & Scotty (before Elvis added D.J. Fontana on drums) perform live on the back of a flatbed truck in Tennessee in 1955. I’ll give you my Beatles, Hendrix, and Who for your Elvis, Bill, & Scotty. ;-)

There was great music made in every decade of the 20th Century (well, except for maybe the 80’s ;-) . but imo none better than that being made right now. I know a few guys who never got over The Beatles, and think no music made since is as good; I couldn’t disagree more. As a live band they weren’t so hot, and a lot of their music sounds dated to me. Yet The Everly Brothers’ and Roy Orbison’s late-50’s/early-60’s music sounds as good today as the day it was made. If "new" music seems to pale in comparison to that made in past decades for some, don’t attribute that to nostalgia alone. Good taste is timeless goes the old expression, but taste is subjective.

I actually prefer the 70’s to the 60’s. In the 70’s we had all of Dave Edmunds’ and Ry Cooder’s great Roots Rock albums (Dave’s a close friend of Robert Plant, who signed him to Swan Song Records. He is the best pure Rock ’n’ Roll guitarist I’ve ever heard. Keith Richards wishes he could play like Dave!), and the flurry of Power Pop bands like The Dwight Twilley Band (a healthy dose of 1950’s influence separates them from all the other PP bands), Nick Lowe (later a member---along with Dave Edmunds---of Rockpile), Cheap Trick, Tom Petty (I guess ;-) , The Records, The Beat, The Plimsouls, The Flamin’ Groovies, Marshall Crenshaw, Squeeze, The Ramones (as much a Pop band as a Punk one), and many more. And lots of great Traditional Country, just from Emmylou Harris alone. And of course AC/DC, one "Rock" band I love. A good portion of my LP collection dates from that decade.

A lot of 1980’s music now sounds dated (ABBA being a prime exception. A grossly under-rated group), thanks to the introduction of electronic drums and (shudder) synthesizers. Cheez-eee. There was the "Indi" Rock movement, but that music never satisfied me: mediocre songs played by mediocre musicians and sung by mediocre singers. Talking Heads? Really? One bright development was the Alt-Country genre, really just Country Rock heavier on the Country than the Rock. Lots of great new artists and bands emerged from that scene. The 90’s then washed the somewhat bad taste (pun intended ;-) of that decade outta our mouths, and it’s been one great record after another ever since.

The problem now is not that there isn’t enough "good music" (define as you wish) being made, but rather that there is so much of it! It’s not on radio or TV, but so what? Hearing the same 20 or 30 songs everyday for months (as was the state of affairs in the 60’s and 70’s) ruined a lot of songs for me anyway. There are several dozen of albums released every quarter that I am interested in, thanks in large part to the very healthy Americana scene. But every genre is bursting with activity, lots of new music worthy of at least giving a listen to. And Dylan is STILL making good new music!

I am GenX. My work collogue and good friend is 22-ish. He knows more about RECORDED music than I ever did when I was his age. I listened to a ton of music when I was his age and younger. Way more than my friend listens to now. However, my knowledge of music was limited by idiot radio DJ's, my friends, and the media of the day. Today's young have the internet and streaming music to have exposure to almost all recorded music. That does not include recommendations and curated playlists that are auto generated. An incredible time to love music.

Cost of music was also a limiting factor for me. The post above about waiting for the 3rd song on an album to be played on the radio also applied to me.

I am lucky that I have KCRW on air from Santa Monica to hear some of the best new music. This station is also available on KCRW.com. The DJ's on this station are incredible. I am not so much a fan of their 24 hour HD stream.

Keep music alive by supporting new artists.

OK boomer